


Misunderstandings

by Kerensa



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerensa/pseuds/Kerensa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night can change everything when Jim let’s his Sentinel side out to play and Blair’s not ready.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings

by Kerensa 

Jim slid his hands under Blair’s shirt, eagerly seeking the warm flesh it encased, only to find another shirt underneath. With a muttered snarl at the delay, he pushed under that shirt…only to find a t-shirt. This time his curse was audible to even non-Sentinel ears. 

Blair lay underneath the hunting Sentinel, his eyes wide and his heart pounding deep inside his chest. The anthropologist gasped at the sudden, and wholly unexpected, change in his and Jim’s relationship. And he did mean **sudden**. 

Only an hour ago, Blair had been standing in the loft’s kitchen, innocently making lasagna for himself and his best friend; now they were making love. Even for someone as **go with the flow** as Naomi Sandburg’s son, this was moving just a little too fast. 

‘Talk about a roller coaster.’ 

“W-wait Jim,” Blair gasped out finally. He pushed ineffectively against the heavy weight pinning him down, trying to slow things down a fraction. 

Ellison’s only response was to shove his hand underneath the layers of shirts. 'Finally,' his frustrated mind shrieked. One questing hand seized a puckered nipple and began to twist it. 

Blair yelped, his eyes growing wider at the sudden electrical shock that raced down his body. “J-Jim! Stop!” 

Jim stopped. He stopped moving at all and was so still that Blair was panicked for a moment, afraid that he’d zoned. Then the Sentinel pushed back abruptly, shoving off with the hand that was on Blair’s chest, causing the smaller man to lose his breath in a grunt. 

“Damn it! I knew this would happen!” Ellison swore. 

“Uh…I…” Blair gasped. 

“I knew you’d end up being a damned tease about this.” 

Jim sat down on the floor beside Blair with a thump. Blair looked over at him in shock. The older man muttered some more and Blair unconsciously leaned closer to hear what he was saying. 

“…leave me hanging. All the hell I wanted to do was fuck a while.” 

“You…” Blair couldn’t breathe, the pain was so immense. 

Ellison sensed that his Guide was in distress and turned to look at him. He recoiled slightly at the look of hurt on Blair’s face. 

“Chief…” Jim reached out to touch Blair, but his hand was knocked out of the way. 

“Don’t touch me,” Blair whispered. When Jim started to lean forward instead, Blair erupted in a ball of pure, undiluted ire. 

The detective was stunned when Blair placed a sock-covered foot squarely in the middle of his chest and shoved as hard as he could. The Sentinel slid back several feet on the waxed hardwood floor and bumped lightly against one of the couches. 

“Get the hell away from me!” Blair yelled. He scrambled up and stood over the Sentinel, clutching the opened halves of his flannel shirts protectively around his body. For once he was the taller, more imposing one. “How dare you! You call me a tease. **Just because I don’t want my first time to be on the floor in the living room!** ” 

The Sentinel’s mouth was hanging open. Not only was Blair yelling at him, but he had physically attacked him too. It wasn’t that Ellison was hurt, he was just stunned by the sudden change in behavior by his pacifistic guide. 

Jim scowled, not liking it that the other man was yelling at him. “Some people would call that romantic,” he argued back. 

“In front of the fire, on a nice blanket, cuddling and making love is **romantic**. Us on the bare floor, doing it like a couple of dogs **isn’t** romantic.” 

The door slammed behind Blair as he walked out of the loft. Jim realized that he hadn’t even heard the last part of Blair’s, rightfully, indignant speech. 

“Wait a minute…first time?” he asked the loft. 

\---- 

Blair sat in his Corvair, trying to get his emotions under control before he drove anywhere. He wasn’t about to risk his life, or anyone else’s either, because he was pissed off and, yes, hurt by Jim’s actions. 

“Might have known,” Blair muttered. “I’m still **Table Leg Sandburg** to him.” 

Wiping his wet eyes on the back of his sleeve, Blair finally pulled away from the parking lot. He just missed seeing a half dressed Jim race out of the apartment building. Admittedly, even if he had seen the older man standing on the sidewalk and waving at him, Blair wouldn’t have stopped. 

\---- 

Blair waited until the waitress was looking in his direction before holding his glass up and shaking it a little. The tired looking woman gave a quick nod to indicate that she’d seen him and then hurried on to the next table. Considering how crowded the bar was, Blair calculated that it would be a while before she made it back. It didn’t really matter, he could, and often did, nurse a beer along for hours. 

A loud cheer erupted from the far side of the bar. Blair watched the celebrating fans, who were whooping at the television and waving their arms around in celebration of some sort of victory. With his anthropologist's eye, Blair looked them over critically and had a brief thought about how they looked like primitive cave dwellers acting out their latest hunt and subsequent kill around a campfire. 

The observer frowned and muttered under his breath. "That was a little harsh, Sandburg." Blair shook his head. "I'm letting my anger prejudice my observations." 

He turned away from the celebration and slouched into the corner of the bar a little more, hiding himself from anyone who might know him, or want to get to know him. The side of the bar curved around to where it met the wall and that was where Blair had been lucky enough to ensconce himself. 

Safely tucked in the corner, Blair was free to think over what had happened earlier in the evening. He was beginning to doubt himself. 

‘What if I led him on or something,’ Blair’s mind whispered. ‘ _He’s never looked at another guy, at least, not that I’ve seen._ ’ 

Blair took the last sip of his beer and stared at the multi-colored bottles of liquor that lined the wall behind the bar. His eyes lost focus as he remembered… 

\---- 

Blair trudged up the last 15 steps and breathed a weary sigh of relief. The damned elevator was out—again! The anthropologist honestly hadn’t thought he’d make it up the two flights of stairs and, quite honestly, the last walk down that long corridor to the loft wasn’t looking so good right now either. 

Maybe he could sleep here, by the stairwell? 

“Crap,” Blair grumbled under his breath. “It’s my night to fix supper.” 

With that thought spurring him on, Sandburg stumbled down the hallway, bouncing off the walls at times in an effort to stay upright. He hadn’t gone more than three feet when his backpack slid off his shoulder and landed on the floor with a thump. Luckily, he managed to keep hold of the shoulder strap. Deciding that it wasn’t worth the effort to hoist the heavy load back up onto his shoulder, Blair just let it drag behind him, like a security blanket. 

Twenty minutes later, Blair felt slightly more human. He’d spent the vast majority of that time standing under a nice, hot shower. The aches and worries of the day swirled down the drain along with his shampoo. 

Dressed in a comfortably loose pair of jeans and a couple of time worn flannel shirts, Blair was tearing lettuce into bite-size chunks when he heard Jim at the front door. Hoping that Jim had had a better day than Blair had experienced, he turned to greet the Sentinel, with a tired smile on his face. 

\---- 

Jim had just experienced one of the shittiest days in his life. Considering that his life, up to now, had included being shot down in Peru and watching all his men die, that said a lot. 

Ellison thumped a hand against the elevator door, making the Out of Order sign bounce and a loud metallic clanging rattle up the elevator shaft. People on every floor of the building came out of the rooms, wondering what the noise was. 

“Great, just great,” the detective cursed. 

Jim had almost zoned in the middle of the bullpen early that morning and his senses had been for crap ever since. He rubbed the side of his head as he began to climb the stairs. Jim’s head hurt, his skin felt too tight for his body, and the Sentinel wanted to tear off all his clothes and run around naked for a while. 

“That’d get their attention,” Jim said with a snigger, the image of himself running around starkers restoring his humor slightly. 

His day truly had been awful. First off, his truck, the ever reliable 1969 blue and white Ford, did a Sandburg and wouldn’t start for him. Naturally, it did this **after** Blair had left for the university. So, Ellison had to call for a tow-truck, wait the two hours for it to show up, and then call a cab to get to the station. 

This all meant that his day started about three hours later than it should have, which didn’t put him or his captain in a good humor. Simon was pissed off at the mayor about all of the useless meetings that he’d spent the better part of a week attending. Jim was ticked off about a perp getting out on bail, even though he’d skipped bail before…twice. 

The Sentinel opened the door to the loft…and suddenly, everything was clear. The problems with his senses disappeared like they had never been there. His vision and hearing focused on Blair and it was like everything else in the world faded away into so much white noise. 

“Jim?” Blair inquired, and Jim had to have more of that wondrous sound. He walked closer. 

Ellison took a deep breath and closed his eyes in pleasure as he breathed in Blair at the same time. Tantalizing scents wafted to Jim’s nose. Hints of soap and shampoo swirled around his head like wisps of fog on a hazy morning. 

“Jim?” Blair asked again, tentatively. 

The Sentinel felt Blair that time. He opened his eyes and saw that Blair had left the kitchen and come over to stand beside him. The younger man had a worried look on his breathtakingly beautiful face. 

Jim lunged. 

He grabbed Blair by the sides of his head, ignoring the startled, and somewhat frightened, look on the anthropologist’s face. Ellison’s mouth came down on Blair’s with more force than he would normally have employed, but he just **had** to taste his Guide. 

Lips slanted against lips and his hands left Blair’s hair to roam down his back. One hand continued on, only to stop when it came to a well formed buttock. The younger man gasped into his mouth when he gave said cheek a good squeeze. 

Knowing that Blair needed to breathe, and getting a little oxygen deprived himself, Jim broke off the kiss and shifted his attention to the side of Blair’s neck. He nibbled his way down and stopped to suck on the juncture between neck and shoulder. His hands were busy, mapping out as much of Blair’s body as he could reach. 

Somewhere in the back of Jim’s brain, the one that his instincts had taken over, he dimly realized that Blair’s hands were holding onto his arms. In other words, Blair wasn’t pushing him away, but he wasn’t actively participating in the making out either. 

‘I need more,’ Jim decided. 

He pushed down on Blair’s hips, getting him to the ground, and then lowered himself onto the prone grad student. His body lying between Blair’s outstretched legs was magnificent and when he ground his hips down and their still clothed cocks rubbed along one another, it was absolute heaven. 

He had to actually touch flesh and so began trying to delve under Blair’s clothes. Frustration and the singing of his rocketing senses made him oblivious to everything else, until… 

“J-Jim! Stop!” 

Ellison came back to his senses, so to speak, with a vengeance. All he felt was resentment that the evening’s entertainment had been interrupted, at least until Blair slammed out the front door. 

\---- 

“Oh, excuse me.” 

Blair was jostled by a man who walked up to the bar to get another refill. The grad student looked up, way up, at the man who was leaning against his leg. 

“Sorry about that,” the big man said with a winning smile. His white teeth were framed by his nice, sun bronzed skin. 

“No problem, man.” Blair smiled back and saw the other man’s green eyes looking over him in appreciation. 

“Name’s Dave.” 

The other man stuck out his hand and Blair automatically shook it. Blair had fairly good sized hands himself, but his own appendages were dwarfed by Dave’s. For some reason, the difference in size bothered Blair and he leaned back against the wall behind himself, trying to put a few more inches of distance between them. 

“What’s your name?” Dave asked pleasantly. 

“Uh…Blair.” Internally, Blair cursed himself for giving his real name. Just like with the handshake, he had reacted instinctively. And Blair’s instincts always had him telling the truth. 

“Nice name…Blair,” Dave drawled out. “I…ooops.” 

Blair jumped when a glassful of cold liquid landed on his thighs. Dave grabbed up a bunch of napkins off the bar and started **helping** clean Blair up from where the other man had accidentally spilled his drink. The anthropologist stood up to get away from all the help, and angled towards the bathroom. Hopefully he’d get away from this guy before it became a real problem. 

“I’m so sorry. Let me help you.” 

“No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway.” 

Blair tried to push his way through the Friday night crowd, which had amazingly grown even bigger than it was 10 minutes ago. What he didn’t realize was that Dave had followed him after all and was steering him, not over to the bathrooms, but subtly angling him to a side door. Before Blair knew it, he was outside, in the alleyway. 

The sudden quiet, as the metal door clanged shut behind them, was almost as startling as the darkness of the alley. Blair swallowed hard and glanced around, trying to find something to defend himself, because this just couldn’t end well. 

“Uh, what’s going on, man?” Blair asked, hating the uncertainty that was in his voice. But crap, this guy was **huge!**

“I thought a little time alone would be better,” Dave said silkily, even as he walked forward, making Blair retreat into the side of the building. 

“Better for who?” Blair was panicking. He was all alone and even if the people in the bar behind him would come out to help, there was no way any of them could hear him yelling for help. 

“Me.” Dave’s breath was tobacco and alcohol scented and right in his face. “You were all wet and I said I’d help you.” 

Blair pushed ineffectually against the man who was looming over him. Unlike with Jim, who just made him nervous because of how fast things had changed, this guy actively scared the observer. Sandburg knew that Dave wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

“That’s okay. I-I’m fine.” 

“Well, I’m not.” Dave’s hand reached between Blair’s legs and gave a hard squeeze. “I’m all wet too and you’re going to help me clean it up.” 

Blair cried out in pain and tried to punch Dave, but his arms were hemmed in by the other man’s body and the concrete wall behind him. “Stop! Let me go!” 

But Dave was not going to be stopped. Alcohol, a raging erection, and the couple of pills he’d popped earlier weren’t helping matters either. Neither was his long history of assaulting men and women. 

“No! Stop!” 

Blair hit and kicked and tried his best to fight back, but this guy was tall, taller than Simon even. He was probably 6’5” or bigger and all muscle. All that his efforts at fighting back gained Blair was a hard punch to the face and ringing ears. He was trying to stay conscious, knowing instinctively that if he were unconscious it would be even worse, and not having much luck. 

There was a roar at the end of the alley, where it joined the parking lot. Blair wasn’t certain if it was his own hearing that was messed up or if the sound really was that of a very loud and very angry cat. 

“Bastard!” 

Dave’s heavy weight was knocked off of him by a flying blur. The loss of his attacker’s body was a relief, but it also had been all that was keeping him up. Blair slid to the ground and moaned when the abrupt stop at the concrete jarred his head even more. 

Swiveling his head to one side as slowly as he could, Blair saw Jim, his rescuer, fighting with Dave, his attacker. Even though Dave was a few inches taller than Ellison, the Sentinel had better fighting skills on his side. Not to mention, he was pissed off! 

A powerful uppercut to Dave’s jaw brought the taller man to his knees. Not satisfied yet, the Sentinel snarled and bopped him on the top of the head with his doubled up fist. Dave’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell forward, face first into the garbage that had missed the dumpster. 

Jim nodded in satisfaction and pulled the unconscious perp’s hands behind his back and handcuffed him before hurrying over to Blair’s side. Blair couldn’t quite make out what Jim was saying, but he dimly noticed that the fight had barely left the detective out of breath. 

“Chief?” 

Ah, that helped. Blair’s ears popped and it didn’t sound like he was in a wind tunnel anymore. He gave Jim a tentative smile. 

“Jim.” 

Things grayed out for a little while. Blair could feel Jim holding him close and hear the detective calling for a unit to pick up his attacker. He was safe and let himself relax. It worked for a while. 

\---- 

Blair was still a little shaky when they got back to the loft. His insides felt all quivery and the grad student’s hands were shaky enough that he couldn’t have gotten his keys out, let alone in the lock successfully. 

Certainly there had been times in his life when Blair had been picked on by people who were bigger than he was, but never to this extent. Beaten up, yes. Bullied, certainly. Almost raped, nope, that one was a first. 

“Come on, Chief,” Jim said softly. 

He steered Blair through the open door and over to the couch. Blair didn’t want to sit on the couch though, he just wanted to crawl into bed and pretend this whole evening had never happened. Jim, apparently, had other ideas. 

David Pernowski had been arrested and was going to be in prison for quite a while. His rap sheet, according to Simon, was about a mile long. It included theft, b & e, assault, attempted rape and battery. Most of the more serious charges had never stuck before, because the victims and witnesses were **persuaded** to drop the charges. 

Now, however, there was a Major Crimes detective as one of the main witnesses. Several of the bar’s patrons were also eyewitnesses. They had seen Blair being forced outside and had called the police. Jim and Blair’s testimony would be enough to ensure that Dave didn’t see the outside of a prison for several years. 

“Easy does it.” 

Blair’s foot jerked back when Jim picked it up. The Sentinel stilled for a moment and Blair looked, really looked at him for the first time since the debacle in the alleyway. It felt like the younger man was under water, moving slowly and not understanding what was being said to him. He could tell that Jim was talking, but for the life of him, Blair couldn’t process the words through his brain. 

“You with me, Blair?” 

The anthropologist watched in great interest as Jim untied his sneakers and dropped them, one by one, onto the floor. He gave a slight nod and that seemed to appease Ellison, because the big man smiled, making the corners of his eyes crinkle up and his pale blue eyes sparkle. 

Blair focused on the blue in those eyes and realized the room was coming into focus. Ellison picked up his hands and began to rub them and Blair found that he could feel once more. Suddenly, everything came back in a roaring rush that raced towards him, like a train hurtling down the track. 

He shuddered and was embarrassed to realize that he was about to cry. Blair most certainly didn’t want to cry in front of the ex-Ranger. In all the time that he’d known Jim, he had never seen him cry. Get upset, yes. Cry, nope. 

“It’s alright, Chief. I’ve got you.” 

Ellison sat down beside him on the couch and wrapped his arms around Blair, holding him close. It didn’t feel hurried, like it had earlier with the two of them, or frighteningly overwhelming like it had with Dave. 

“I’m sorry, Blair,” Ellison said eventually. 

“For what?” Blair inquired. “You didn’t attack me.” 

“Yes, I did.” The Sentinel sighed. “When I came home tonight…well, everything had been so shitty all day. My senses were all over the place and then, there you were, and it all clicked into place. I didn’t even think whether or not you’d want to be with me.” 

Blair sighed and shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

Jim flinched back. A hurt look made its way across his face before it was replaced with the typical ‘ _I have no feelings_ ’ mask that Ellison usually wore. His body tensed and began to pull away. The Sentinel would have gotten up, but Blair had a strong grip on his forearm that he refused to relinquish. 

“Don’t you dare walk away,” he growled and Jim settled back down with a surprised look on his face. 

Blair loosened his grip on Jim’s arm when he saw that the ex-Ranger wasn’t going to run. The anthropologist shook his head affectionately. 

“What I meant was, don’t be ridiculous, of course I want to be with you.” 

Jim sighed and rewrapped his arms around Blair’s waist. He pulled the curly head down onto his shoulder and smiled. The Sentinel was pleased to realize that he hadn’t completely messed up any chance with his Guide. 

\---- 

_Never let it be said that an Ellison can’t learn his lesson,_ Jim thought smugly. 

He glanced around the loft and was pleased at the results. There was a fire in the fireplace, its warm glow adding a homey atmosphere to the darkened loft. Red candles on the floor, in protective ‘hurricane’ lanterns, surrounded a super thick piled, fake fur rug that was topped by several blankets. Scattered liberally around this cozy scene were red rose petals. 

Jim had made sure that this was his night to cook supper. He managed to get home early for a change and arranged the scene in front of the fireplace and fixed all of Blair’s favorite foods. From a healthy salad, dressing on the side, of course, to vegetarian eggplant parmesan, it was all for Blair. Of course, Jim didn’t dislike any of the foods either, so it wasn’t that big of a sacrifice. 

The last two weeks, since the attack, had seen a big change in the two men. Their friendship had begun to blossom, going from best friends to hopeful lovers. They would sit on the couch and talk for hours, cuddling and kissing a little, but **not** making love. That was what Jim was hoping for tonight. 

Hearing the key turning in the door, Jim turned to face his Guide and best friend. Tonight, there would be no misunderstandings. 

The End. 

Acknowledgments: Thanks to my beta extraordinaire, Bobbie Turnbeaugh. She was lightening fast for me on this one. Any mistakes are all my own. Thank you also to Marianne for the lovely cover art and to Patt for the ending art.


End file.
